Awkward Ducks
by RainbowPigs
Summary: What was so hard about making friends? All one had to do was go up to someone and say 'Hi, my name is Shay, what's your name' Although, 'saying' and 'doing' are two completely different things all together. Drabble series. Eventual Kendall/OC Updated whenever I feel like it.
1. What An Awkward Duck

What an Awkward Duck

If someone looked up the word 'Awkward' in the dictionary, they would more than likely see a picture of a girl named Shay Hanson. Everyday she would tell herself, "Today is the day! I'm going to go out and make new friends!" and everyday, she would steel herself and find a few people to talk to. Shay would walk towards them, and when she was almost there... She would turn and walked the other way, her confidence withering away into nothing. After this, Shay would frown and trudge back up to her apartment to sit in her living room and either draw or talk to her cat, a bored looking black and white tabby named Zuzu, and try not to let the disappointment eat away at her self esteem too badly.

The teen couldn't understand why she couldn't just simply go up to a person and say 'Hello, I'm Shay, what's your name?' and try to strike up a conversation.

Oh wait, yes she did.

Just the very thought of going up to a random person was terrifying to her; even more terrifying than all of the creepy porcelain dolls, clowns and grudge children combined.

_Why am I such a loser?_

Shay sat on her couch for a moment, pencil twisting in her fingers as she weighed her options. She could always go into the lobby and try to make friends again, or she could see if Camille or Katie were by the pool and she could talk to them. The latter seemed like a more appealing idea, so Shay gathered her things and headed down to the pool, lanyard with three keys (One for her apartment, car and mailbox) and various key chains swinging around her finger tips. Shay entered the lobby and headed to the entrance to the pool, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw Camille sitting at a table with four guys- scratch that- four _gorgeous_ guys, who seemed to be having a fun time watching Camille and one of said boys argue over something.

Shay's heart started to race and her palms began to sweat, and she gulped, staring deer-eyed at the five teenagers at the table, too terrified to make any sudden movements.

_Okay, calm down dude. Camille hasn't seen you yet, so there's no reason for you to get so paranoid. Just walk away slowly-_

Just then, Camille glanced at the lobby entrance and spotted Shay, an excited smile lighting the dark haired girl's face and she jumped up and raced to her friend.

"Shay! I was wondering when you would come down! I want you to meet some people!" Camille exclaimed, dragging the poor anxious girl by her arm towards the table, ignoring Shay's protests at the sudden action. She liked to do things at her pace darn it! This was _so _not going to help at all!

"Camille! What are you doing? Let me go!" Shay cried, hoping that the girl dragging her would stop and let her go. To Shay's relief, Camille stopped, but there was a determined light to the method actress's eyes that made Shay cringe in fear.

"Listen up Shay and listen good! You're going to make some friends even if it kills you! You need to spread your wings and try things you've never done before. Like introducing yourself to those four boys over there!" Camille then pointed to the boys, who all sported very confused looks on their faces at their exchange. Shay gulped and wrung her hands together, biting her lip and looking down at her worn out skating shoes, tears prickling at the backs of her eyes.

"But what if they don't like me? What if I mess up and they hate me? And then they beat me up cause I'm so weird?" Shay's eyes widened and she pressed her hands to her face in comedic horror and gasped. "Oh _please_ don't let them beat me up!" Camille laughed out right at this and doubled over before wiping tears of mirth from her eyes.

"Don't worry, just go over there and introduce yourself. You'll be fine, I promise." Camille then smiled widely and patted Shay's back, who gave a small smile in turn and began to pinch her bottom lip out of habit before shuffling over to the table. So many things were buzzing in Shay's head, but the girl was determined not to blow this chance at making more friends.

Shay shot one last glance at Camille, before directing her stare to anything _but _the boys in front of her and managed to greet them without stuttering.

"Hi, I'm Shay, nice to meet you." The boys were silent, and for a moment Shay wished she could crawl under a rock and die. That is, until the four of them stood up and began to introduce themselves and about gave the eighteen-year-old whiplash by how fast she lifted her head to look at them.

The first to introduce himself was a dark skinned boy named Carlos. His large doe eyes and friendly smile made Shay instantly relax and smile shyly back.

The second boy was quite obviously the 'pretty boy' of the group, and introduced himself as James as well as thrusting a few head shots of himself into the girls face.

The third was a blonde named Kendall with the most striking green eyes the girl had ever seen, and a demeanor that exuded confidence.

And last but not least was a boy named Logan, who was undoubtedly the genius of the four. Shay smiled shyly again and waved awkwardly, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, not knowing what to say to them. Thankfully Kendall broke the almost awkward silence.

"So, what do you do?" he asked as Carlos began to jump up and down beside him in excitement.

"Yeah, I'll bet it's awesome! Do you sing like us? How long have you been here?" he asked, a hopeful smile lighting up his face. Shay blinked owlishly at the expectant faces before her. This was as far as she had ever gotten with talking to people (Besides with Camille and Katie, but that was a different story all together) and even if she did come up to talk to someone, they just gave her odd stares or would walk away before anything could happen. Of course, a tiny voice in the back of Shay's head told her they were only being polite for Camille and that they probably wouldn't talk to her any more than this, but it was nice to pretend.

"Well, uh, I'm a voice actor, and I guess you could say I sing as well, but I do it as a hobby on the weekends I'm not in the studio." Carlos then began to jump around and press his hands to his face, a wide grin parting his face.

"You're in a band? So are we!" Carlos exclaimed, grabbing Shay's arms and pulling her close. "_Please _tell me you've heard of Big Time Rush!" Shay had only heard some gossip here and there about them (Mostly from her cousin, who was completely in love with them) and she had never actually taken the time to listen to their music, but Carlos' face was so hopeful, Shay didn't want to disappoint him.

"Unfortunately no," the Latino's face instantly fell. "But I'd love to go to your studio and check you guys out sometime!" Carlos instantly brightened and jumped around excitedly.

Logan patted the boys shoulder in an attempts to make him calm down, and directed his gaze toward the girl in front of him.

"What kind of music do you play?" he asked, and soon their eyes grew wide and curious, all four leaning in expectantly. Shay was ecstatic to say the least. She was finally making friends, and it was all thanks to Camille! Shay inwardly thanked the raven haired girl before answering. "I play Indie, Alternative, and Rock, or whatever sounds good to me at the time, but I'm mostly a cover artist. Songwriting doesn't come very easily to me." Shay then laughed a little awkwardly and scratched the back of her head, unused to all the attention.

Camille stood back a few paces, and watched the five of them talk. Mission: Find Shay Some Friends is a-go and so far, it's working flawlessly! The raven haired girl was happy with her work, and all Shay needed to do was take the time to talk with them over the next few days to get it set in stone.

Although, 'saying' and 'doing' are two completely different things all together.


	2. Downtime

Awkward Ducks

Chapter Two

Downtime

Kendall threw his arms lazily over the back of a pool chair he had been sitting in for the last two hours, a content grin on his face as he looked over the Palm Woods pool, the early air having a calming effect on his body. The blonde really liked mornings like this. There was hardly any one up at eight in the morning at the Palm Woods, and if there were, they were either under the age of fifteen and on their way to an audition for one thing or another or over the age of forty and on their way to where ever they worked, leaving the Palm Woods pool vacant. There were hardly any times like this when Kendall could have downtime to himself, and when there was, he enjoyed every bit.

The blonde cast his eyes lazily around the pool, glancing at the empty tables across from him to the lobby doors where Mr. Bitters glared at him while eating something that looked along the lines of a waffle sandwich. Kendall only rolled his eyes and continued to space out, a song by one of his favorite bands pounding gently in his ears.

He sat there in content silence for another twenty minutes or so before he saw someone entering the pool area. The blonde glanced up and saw the nervous dark haired girl from a few days prior. He smiled and waved, earning him a more hesitant smile back from the girl before she skirted the edge of the pool and to the tables across from Kendall, dumping the contents of a back-pack onto it.

Kendall frowned a moment, trying to think of the girls name before he tried to talk to her, but for the life of himself, he couldn't remember it. It started with an 'S', he knew that much, but it was all the vowels and consonants afterward that he was having a hard time remembering. Sherry...? Shannon...? Shay maybe? Yes, that was it! Shay, the most awkward girl he had ever met in all his life, and he didn't know yet if it was a good or bad thing, but he figured he might as well hang out with her a bit and see where it led.

The blonde casually gathered his belongings and strode confidently to the girl, a friendly grin stretching across his face as he neared her.

Shay, to say the least, was suck in her own world of reading and writing that for a few moments, didn't notice Kendall standing at her table until he coughed awkwardly. Kendall was amused when the girls head shot up and she jumped a little, too absorbed in her work to give a proper response, and waved in greeting.

"Hey, it's Shay right?" he asked politely. Shay blinked owlishly at him for a fraction of a second before slowly nodding her head yes, not knowing who the boy standing in front of her was.

"Uh, yeah." she said, trying to remember the blonde's name. He smiled, showing off a set of deep dimples that made Shay's heart jump into her throat.

"I'm Kendall, Camille introduced us yesterday." Recognition flashed across Shay's face and she gave a huge grin, the black snakebites that adorned her bottom lip stretching to the corners of her mouth as she did so.

"Oh okay, I remember now." she chirped brightly.

"Mind if I sit?" he asked, gesturing to the empty seat next to him. Shay immediately jumped up and began scooping all of the papers and notebooks into a messy pile, her face going scarlet when she realized just how messy she made the table in less than five minutes.

"Oh glob, sorry about the mess!" she exclaimed, flustered beyond belief. "I'm studyin' for finals and don't really know the term 'organized' when I get close to the deadlines."

Kendall quirked an eyebrow at Shay. "Glob?" he asked, unfamiliar with the term.

"I watch too many cartoons, so I tend to pick up the lingo from time to time." she said, rubbing behind her ear in embarrassment, a slight accent making 'time' sound a bit like an airy 'tam'. Kendall only smiled, thinking it was cool that she still watched cartoons when other teenagers in L.A had given that up to become more 'mature'.

Internally, Shay was shitting bricks that this absolutely _gorgeous _boy was sitting down and having a polite conversation with her instead of running away from her awkwardness to find something else to occupy his no doubt busy life with. Her heart thumped erratically and she wrung her hands under the table nervously, listening intently as Kendall told her a story about catching raccoons with his friends back in Minnesota.

"You don't talk much, do you?" the blonde suddenly stated, noticing the way Shay only nodded and smiled politely at his words. Her face grew red in embarrassment and she rubbed her palms against her pant legs, shifting her gaze to look at a sharpie drawing on the table.

"I grew up in a pretty big city but didn't go out much 'cause people scared me, so I didn't really learn how to socialize 'properly'." she made air quotation marks around the word 'properly' and bit the inside of her lip, moving a black lip ring around with her tongue while she talked, as well as picking at a few loose strings on the bottom of her shirt. "I've been slightly Anthropophobic my entire life, and had a hard time making friends. Kind of silly though, ain't it? Considerin' I'm a voice actor and a one man band on the weekends." Kendall leaned forward in his seat a bit, folding his elbows over the table to give Shay his complete and undivided attention, extremely interested in her story (if not mostly to hear that super cool accent she had).

"What's anthro...?" he asked after a small moment of silence.

"Anthoropophobia? It's just like a really rare, extreme fear of being around people. I wouldn't say I'm _completely _anthropophobic, I just tend to have severe social anxiety."

Kendall quirked a brow questioningly. "You seem to be completely fine now."

Shay shrugged her shoulders and continued to avert her eyes, staring at her worn out shoes from under the table. "It may not look like it, but I've got butterflies in my stomach and it's really hard to try and talk to you without having a heart attack or throwing up." Shay then tugged sharply on one of her lip rings and pulled out her phone, glancing at the time and checking a message in the awkward silence that followed her comment.

"If it's so hard for you to talk to people, how can you go up on stage and do all the things you do without having a heart attack?"

To this Shay had no real answer, and she probably never would.


End file.
